My New Years wishes for all my friends: (From my Facebook page…)

May you avoid any type of vehicular accidents for the entire year…

May you avoid any type of social diseases for the entire year…(no, Social Diseases have nothing to do with Social Media)

May you be successful at keeping your “secret” files on your computers and phones well-hidden.

May any diseases, syndromes, ailments or health issues be cured, or at least not get any worse.

May you find the perfect ice cream. (Hint: It’s Private Selection Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chip—but that’s just me…)

May you find the perfect Love of Your Life. (If you already have, then May you keep them forever…)

If you sail, then May you always have freshening winds and following seas.

If you fly, May the number of safe landings always equal the number of take-offs.

If you ride motorcycles, May your bones remain unbroken and also your hearts.

To the cops, firefighters and EMTs, May every shift be ended with a safe trip home.

Happy New Year, my friends!

Yesterday we did a few estate sales with our friend Sandy, and she showed up in a 2021 Toyota Rav 4. Her car was in the shop, and this was her loaner from Don Hattan, a local dealer here in Wichita. Whenever we do sales, I always have my Garmin programmed ahead of time and the route and order of “visitation” on a pad because I am tasked with the driving. But I digress. What this is really about is petty bitching about the vehicle. And I have nothing against Toyota. My personal truck is a 2010 Tacoma, which I love. One of the reasons I love it is because it doesn’t have a big screen TV in the middle of the dash, hooked to a computer that would put the electronics in the space shuttles to shame. I think this shit has gone far enough. I couldn’t figure out how to turn off all the “driver assist” bullshit, so it was constantly arguing with me and beeping me and raising hell with my driving. Apparently, I’m a shitty driver. And I already knew this. I didn’t need a black Rav 4 to tell me. Constantly. Whenever it comes time to replace my pickup, if that ever happens (there’s a good chance it may outlive me) I’m seriously going to be looking at rat rods, survivors and restorations. If it’s not old enough to have an ash tray, I’m not interested…

Okay, today I did something I’ll bet NO ONE else can say they did. We were sitting in the living room, binge-watching Deadwood, when a bird flew past my head and into the front room. I’m like WTF? In just a minute, there’s a second one! A pair of house wrens are inside, cruising around my house. We spend a good 40 minutes catching these two and putting them out on the sunporch, where we have plants and heaters running. Okay, cool, now where did they get in? I’ve had them in my basement before and House Wrens are very good at getting inside buildings, finding their way in and out to hunt spiders and to collect spider web silk, which they line their nests with. I check my basement and I have a gap by my sill plate over an inch wide! So I spent some time with wood pieces and foam insulation closing that up. Not sure I got it completely, but we’ll deal with that on a warmer day. In the morning, we should have some sunshine and I’ll let David and Daisy back outside. I really thought wrens migrated. Apparently not…

I’m working on a list of “old people” things…feel free to contribute. If they are old enough, old people can use the excuse that they lived through the Depression, and therefore they are very “frugal,” another word for “cheap…”

We save the napkins from fast-food orders and use them at other meals.

We often use paper plates more than once. As an example, you just had toast on a paper plate, and you dump the crumbs in the trash and toss the plate on the counter to use again.

Some people rinse out zip-lock bags and reuse them. I have even seen people with a collection of “drying racks” for their zip-lock bags, made out of coat hangers, bent into creative shapes to hold the bags open.

I save old jeans for yard work. They are the ones with rips and patches and paint on them, that I won’t wear in public. Young people pay extra for these and call them cool and fashionable.

I have “mowing shoes,” that are no longer fit to wear “out in public.” They look like shit and I seldom tie them anymore. Most comfortable shoes I own…I have 5 or 6 pairs of shoes I never wear at all, but they’re “too good to throw away…”